“Rock and Sand”

Raghda Mouazen, Syria

As rock and sand we live

You so strong cannot be harmed

Taking over the surface, keeping me captive

The pressure goes on and on till I burned

Breakable now I to glass turned

You say sand I used to be I won’t break

There I lay shattered under rocks

They say it was the heat and you made no mistake

“My Sole Sun”

Raghda Mouazen, Syria                

I truly adore
Your dazzling shine
Lovely upon my core
The dreary night you confine
With flames of vitality you always bore.

Stunned, Impassioned I behold
How you can reach
Every one and each
Corner of my world.

I thrive to survive the mighty storm
My roses are worn, my trees are bare
My fields to a cemetery transform
Only death, only despair
To roam!

I see only black, I feel only cold
Weary as I am, I cannot hold
Impossible for life to flower, to grow
Without your blaze, without your warmth
It is not utter darkness though.

A fair gleam can reach
These silky strings of gold
Penetrate through the shadows
Gently laid upon my sorrows.

Look! how the gallows
Turn to buds and blooms
Oh how the rainbow
Defeats the ache and the gloom
As if I were never hollow.
 
The bleak dew
Now on the petals glow
A colourful starry sky
You paint in the morn.

The darkness of the night cannot prevail
Or plot the black death of my soul
For although you have worn your veil
A white glimmer of hope you send keeps me whole.

But how do the stars glitter far?
Perhaps every single one
Has its own universe
To bring life to,
To flicker.

Forever in your care
Under your large wings
I find tenderness, I find love
How I adore you up above,
With your everlasting beauty
And compassionate heart,
How vast my love is for thee,
Mother.

“Overthinking”

Raghda Mouazen, Syria

Filled with all gloomy thoughts

The air enters my lungs

After whispering into my ears

Leaving me between life and death hung.

You shouldn’t have followed the goblins

Staying with humans was best!

But I have to save the tiny butterflies

And give them the burden of my chest.

A snake keeps hissing

In the air spreading its poison

The butterflies are missing

And the snake is plotting with the goblins.

I swallow the poison downwards

The selfish words keep hissing

I look the snake in the eyes

To stone my mind turns

A new sting on my heart

And it burns.

The goblins laugh and party

Drinking the tears,

Dancing on the sobs

Into giant monsters they turn

Feeding on the fears

Bearing a sword reciting them to me.

Only thorns it plants

Horns they have bent

Words that redden they grant

But believe me certainly not meant!

Blood dripping roses they give

To others who won’t live

To say that they have witnessed the giant’s teeth

A smile they show when I pass by

A knife they stab when I turn my eyes.

Bear the pain I can not

I once escaped but no, now I’m not

I had to regret a lot

For forsaking the slaughter

And die quietly among their laughter.

The strong memory of the ears

Did no good for the red weary eyes

Reciting nothing but fears

Generating only sobs and sighs.

In my throat it is still

The bitterness of the poisonous letters

Breaking my bones

Eating up my flesh

Sucking the crimson well

That feeds my heart.

The pillow is fed up with my tears

The night is furious at my sobs

That broke the sacred silence of the ears

Still, darkness is the only friend that never left me.

Without Jenny by Mark Gunther

Without Jenny is a bittersweet novel about the Jewish Community in San Francisco. It follows the Rosenberg family through their grieving process after a freak accident took the life of their daughter Jenny. Joy and Jenny were on their way to have a mother/daughter outing when Joy pulls across the street from a small store to buy a water for her daughter. While in the store she hears a horrible crash and finds that tons of scaffolding has crushed her car with Jenny inside. The story follows how hard it is to grieve the death of one child while trying to be there emotionally for their younger son. It also shows how the grieving of a child can not only tear a family apart but how hard it is to stay together. It also lets us know how the grieving process is very personal, how a parent never “gets over it” but learns how to cope and learn to live again.

Mark Gunther’s Without Jenny is available here.

13-

Jellyfish beach bingo.  No Annette.

No Frankie. Men of war. Tentacle

tungsten light house.  What are we

fighting for.  Eric Burden and House

of the Rising.  John O’Hara or Frank.

Aristophanes is out. Brook Farm is

no Utopia. Nowhere. Erewhon. No

matter what Well(e)s says. War of

the Worlds my ass.  Even real life is

a movie. If true, who will direct.

                        14-

A child’s religious experience is a

merry-go-round. The bear comes

over the mountain.  The movie. I

forget. A Child’s Christmas in Wales

Wails. By the Sound.  East Egg red

warning light. Across the vast expanse.

Every night . On the wrong side of

the enchanted toll booth. Cash only.

No passing in this lane. How many axels.

Tool collector’s scam.  Big money that.

Once upon a time. Séance on a Wet

Afternoon. Not a good beach day.

                        15-

Either the aluminum ice cream or

the luminous supermarket eggs.

Inside the Not-So-Friendly’s. Best

job I never got. We’ll call you.

Don’t call. I’m still not holding my

breath. Yale Art gallery steeped

in Americana.  Not DeLillo.  Waiting

for Francis Bacon Express train to

Hartford.  Suicide on the tracks.

The relative importance of beer and

hot dogs. On the beach. After the bomb

drops.  The jelly fish graveyard.

Buried alive in wet sand. No Swimming

Allowed. How to tell the kids.

The Summer is almost over.

                        16-

I need money.  Beatles on the radio.

Not an original to them.  Twist and.

Summertime and the living is. Porgy and.

Peanut Butter and jelly on.  The beach.

Where the kids are. What the kids love.

A Walk in the Sun. The yellow brick road

to hell. It’s all politics. Cape Fear(s).

Fists of Fury, Love and hate tattoos.

Words of God.  Jesus wore sandals.

Walked on water. Was a tough act to follow.

                        17-

Sleeping with Jim Morrison. Not a religious

experience. Said Eve Babitz. She would

know. Knew him when.  New word-Zuihitsu.

means writing by following the brush. How

about by following the thought. Wherever.

Whatever. Along The Narrow Road to the Interior.

I guess. No evident meaning. Asleep, I am, on

my pillow book. Not the movie. Maybe my life.

Definitely not a Draughtsman Contract.

I apologize for the eyes in my head. I dare

you to spell Komunyakaa twice fast. Once.

Oh the trouble I have seen. In my interior

journal. The brush is wet. Light my fire.

                        18-

Can’t wake up. My pillow book is so

aggressive.  Inscribing pictures of Breughel

on my skin. Not tattoos. Not an illustrative

man. A motion picture. Skin movies.

Theaters of the mind. Coming soon.

Not as good as real sex. Or as bad.

I’ll Never Forget

Wearing the sneakers my mother’d 

got from a catalogue 

smiling on half-price sale for my birthday. 

The kids at school sneered, pointed with 

fingers like pistols. 

Somehow they always knew. 

I never wore them again &

Mother kept paying the layaway. 

15

alone in that old house 

It felt the least haunted then.

Smoking my father’s cigarettes, 

sipping at his whisky. 

knowing I should be at school but 

realizing that was just exchanging 

one kind of isolation for another. 

I’ll Give It Your Name

Right here, I said. I want your mark.

She holding the straight razor, 

couldn’t do it, hurt me that way. 

It wasn’t in her nature, she said. 

She fucked that guy she met 

from the internet instead. 

When It Flares Up 

That vicious stray clawing 

at the door. Rain moving, 

a grey blanket inside this room. 

Counting worthless things lying to 

myself that everything’s going to be alright.

Mercy

A damp Sunday afternoon, 

walking with my father 

through fields.

We found a rabbit 

that was blind and deaf, 

its fur moved like water 

underneath my tiny fingertips.

My father snapped its neck.

The kindest thing, he said.

I was seven years old 

& I cried.

My father shook his head at me,  

the dead rabbit hanging limp from his fist

like so many words unsaid. 

Medicine 

The VD clinic was empty &

the smell of her lingered 

over my hands & fingers. 

Tinny music left small speakers,

my sneakers dancing alone &

the nurse at the reception desk frowning. 

I grinned a little, while I 

waited, thinking if anyone 

had given me a disease,

I was happy 

it was 

her.

Stephen J. Golds was born in London, U.K, but has lived in Japan for most of his adult life. He enjoys spending time with his daughters, reading books, traveling, boxing and listening to old Soul LPs. His novel Say Goodbye When I’m Gone will be released by Red Dog Press in October 2020 and another novel Glamour Girl Gone will be released by Close to The Bone Press January 2021.

By Chinese poet Hongri Yuan

Translated by Yuanbing Zhang

 Four Poems

The Sea of The Golden Palace

Happiness is the memory of heaven

And the soul is as sweet as the sun.

On the canvas of the death

you daub a smile from the gods.

Oh, that is the light! The light of honey.

If you can hear the heavenly hymns

that is the sea from that golden palace

lapping sapphire over eternal universe.

黄金的宫殿之海

快乐是天堂的记忆

而灵魂是甜美的太阳

在死亡的画布之上

你涂抹诸神的笑容

哦  那是光  光之蜜

如果你听见了天国的乐曲

那是黄金的宫殿之海

在蓝宝石的太空之上

2016.7.30

The Wine of The Soul

I pick up a smiling flower from the future city

To light up your black iron dreams

The new book of the world delivers by the holy lightning

The giant’s body rotates the transparent picture of the faraway stars-cape

The light emanates from the gods

Let you see yourself without any sorrow

The body is high and translucent, each cells are as sweet as the wine of the souls. 

灵魂之酒

我摘取一朵未来之城的笑容之花

照亮你的黑铁之梦

天国的闪电送来新的世界之书

巨人的体内旋转透明的星云之图

那来自诸神的光芒

让你看到那个不知忧愁的自己

身体巨大透明  每一颗细胞甜美如灵魂之酒

2015.3.16

The City of Angel’s Smile

The white and silvery words of the moon kingdom

shone in the dream last night

The king of giants

in the massive cities of ancient times

presented me the gem book of the soul

I will build a garden in the desert

fill the jade vase with the holy spring

Let the rivers and lakes shine

a city of the angel’s smile

天使的微笑之城 

月亮之国的银白词语

在昨夜的梦境闪烁

那位巨人的王

在史前的巨城

赠我宝石的灵魂之书

我将在沙漠上建造花园

用一只玉瓶盛来天国之甘泉

让河流和湖泊映照

一座天使的微笑之城

 2016.5.7

The Interstellar Kingdom

Sometimes I see the sky smiling at me

The limpidity spirit and flower clouds

such as the old soul of mine

watch my shadow on the earth

The ground beneath my feet like a colossal ship

toward the Interstellar Kingdom

Those cities where giants dwell

blossom on the dustless Milky Way.

星际的王国 

有时我看到天空向我微笑

那淸澈的空明  花朵的云儿

仿佛我那古老的灵魂

注视着我在人间的身影

这脚下的大地是一艘巨轮

正在驶向星际的王国

那些巨人们居住的城市

在没有尘埃的银河上绽放

 2016.1.2

Bio:

Hongri Yuan (b. 1962) is a Chinese mystic poet and philosopher. His work has been published in journals and magazines internationally in UK, USA, India, Mexico, New Zealand, Canada and Nigeria. He has authored a number long poems including Platinum City, The City of Gold, Golden Paradise, Gold Sun and Golden Giant. The theme of his works is the exploration about human prehistoric civilization and future civilization.

About the Translator

Yuanbing Zhang (b. 1974), who is a Chinese poet and translator, works in a Middle School, Yanzhou District , Jining City, Shandong Province, China. He can be contacted through his email- 3112362909@qq.com.

——————–

Jackson Pollock Leisure Suits

In technicolor Sunday New York Times verse

they stand, swagger, poise:

isolationist dogs of fashion

choke collars, spiked heels, jello hair

skyscraper streets reverberate

cardboard silk, plastic linen, chrome sunglasses

machinery of lust

keeping up with the Gucci’s

bruised skin, subway shoes, fat lips

raw-skinned fly swept vegetables

cancerous hides of tan polyester

smeared with a thousand Chinese dinners.

To the Caffe Trieste

Long live this corner

sun hip Victorian

early morning opera

Long live North Beach

boheme San Francisco

readers, writers, protestors

Long live the searchers

souls drunk

in the well of sadness

trieste

Here’s to la dolce vita

the sweet life

the poets

tante belle cose

many beautiful things

Supermarket

Sometimes

I just want

to buy up

all the Pop-Tarts

in the store,

all the M&M’s,

marshmallows, milk

and Count Chocula,

fill up a big bowl

and float down

the goddamn lazy river.